DO NOT TRUST ANYONE. DO NOT SHOW EMOTION. DO NOT FALL ASLEEP.
A short while after a space shuttle explodes on re-entry, psychiatrist Carol Bennell (Nicole Kidman) realizes that people around her are turning completely emotionless. German director Oliver Hirschbiegel’s first Hollywood flick is (yawn) another remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), a version that doesn’t add anything new. We follow Carol on the run with her son; a few of the action set pieces work, but there isn’t much tension. As for message, it doesn’t deliver anything beyond stating that a flawed humanity trumps a perfect, plastic one.
2007-U.S. 99 min. Color. Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel. Cast: Nicole Kidman (Carol Bennell), Daniel Craig (Ben Driscoll), Jeremy Northam (Tucker Kaufman), Jackson Bond, Veronica Cartwright, Jeffrey Wright… Malin Åkerman.
Trivia: When the studio turned out to be unhappy with Hirschbiegel’s work, Larry and Andy Wachowski were brought in to do rewrites and James McTeigue to direct new scenes.
